The Next Level In Gaming

Renya Kagurazaka is a 17 year old without luck, he’s never won a competition,little ever seems to swing wildly in his favour, so he lives a life in the middle,eschewing any chance of the brilliant for a life of predictability, without disappointment.

When he gets a lottery ticket, the plan is to give it to his sister, but is bullied by a pretty Miss in a Mall into gambling the ticket. Not only does Renya win, but wins a prize above and beyond anything he could imagine.

He becomes GOD.

We’re doing things a little differently with this review, along with my Twin Humanities cohort Paddy Stardust and MK Gaming.

Below we take time to discuss the game at length. It’s a little pervy, sashays into Monty Python levels of bonkers at times, matched with instances which are genuinely, wonderfully profound. All set in a style of game which, on the face of it, is what Disgaea creators Nippon Ichi do best. Yet the game plays a little differently to preconceptions. It’s faster, leaner – and has a very, very mean streak when it wants to.

As such it was a lot of fun to discuss, to bounce thoughts and favourite moments back and forth, and really get our gaming gobs around the meat and bones of the game.

If you fancy skipping all of that audible gubbins, Paddy has detailed his musings on the game, and review score over in his review at MK Gaming. Have a look if you will, then nosey around the site and see just how ace it is. Bookmark it, and snuggle it up next to Plus XP. Ta!

As for my own thoughts, the soft spot I have to The Guided Fate Paradox runs a little deeper than Patrick’s, I think. It’s been a long time since a title has caughtme off guard to this degree.

There’s such a lot in the mix, of comedy, ideas and the brilliantly inquisitive that it stole me away. It’s far from perfect, and has a spike in difficulty which seems to be an issue of balancing, a devious blade to keep the determined coming back for more, certainly, but one which may well ostracise the player who sees the elastic yank backwards as a reason to leave the game alone.

I’ve mentioned in previous reviews of a media focus for games that can be rinsed, traded, moved on from within a matter of hours – with those challenging titles, the hard to get into, with the mischievous slow unveiling of features sadly shunned.

This one’s an eventual beast on that front, and preparation for that is a conversation you need to have with yourself before going in.If you’re good and ready you’ll find a title that looks utterly gorgeous, is packed
with all manner of delights, sighs and ponderings – a lunchbox of massive ideas and ambition.

That the game has been near ignored in so many ways, media, punters, promotion, is a real crime. I’d love to see NIS stick up the first hour on PSN and see how people react to it. Said downloaders may well find themselves as
delighted and surprised as I am.

+ A seemingly stream of consciousness dance of ideas, moods and instances that may well throw you for quite the loop.

CONS:

- Controls really do take some getting used to. Menu’s are mapped across both sticks, the D-Pad doesn’t scream the correct way to move at times.

- Eventually, quite the difficulty spike.

85 / 100

If you fancy something really, really different – a title to which you have no expectations, and has no expectations of what it has to be – then The Guided Fate Paradox has to be recommended to you. Just be wary of that whoosh in difficulty.